We are home, safe and sound. I'm almost done unpacking and editing photos (we took over 1500, and are printing about 2/3 of those) and tying up a few loose ends from our trip.
Lessons learned for future trips:
1. Honda Odysseys should be started and driven more often than every three weeks. It's a good thing we were picked up at the airport, rather than parking our car in long-term parking, as we had to call AAA for a jump start. Our Saturn, on the other hand, started up with no problems this morning, despite having been parked for probably four to five weeks.
2. Bank of America is very fussy about travel. Apparently contacting them directly through their secure e-mail system is not enough to prevent them from cutting off access to your debit card while traveling overseas--you have to call a special phone number (NOT the one listed on the back of the card) to make this happen. It would have been nice if they had mentioned this when I sent them the initial e-mail, rather than suddenly blocking my card halfway through our trip. And it would also have been even nicer if their phone system hadn't hung up on me the first two times I tried to call today.
-----
This will be the last post for a couple of years, until the next time we travel overseas. Our kids have been bitten by the travel bug, so there are many options for the next trip. China, Germany, and Greece are some of the countries being discussed, plus we all loved Venice and Paris and would like to return sometime. Au revoir!
